Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DVPCX995V 400-Disc DVD Mega Changer/Player

I've seen the reviews of others with their title information being wiped. Well, I found my personal solution which works better than it ever could.

Use Excel or a DVD library program (like DVD Profiler). Use that to store your DVD titles, along with the disc slot number where it was stored at.

Then get a 880 or 890 Logitech Harmony Remote (don't know if the lower models work). Export the title information to a .csv file (basically a comma delimited text file). Then upload that .csv file to your Harmony remote. With that, you can store all the title information on your remote and press a button on it to play the movie! If for whatever reason the remote memory gets wiped, I can easily upload the info again using the .csv file.

Another benefit of using a program like DVD Profiler is that I can just input the UPC number to get the title information. Don't have to waste time inputting the title information manually with the keyboard into the dvd player.

Oh yes, the Sony DVPCX995V is a great jukebox DVD player also. :)

I purchased this unit to safely store my collection in a dust free, scratch free environment as we have small children who wreak havoc on DVD's. The sound and picture quality is incredible. I thought that it was a little extravigant to buy until I realized that I had already spent more than the cost of this unit on leatherette albums (25 DVD's to an album) as I have collected 300 plus DVD's over the years. When I fill this one up, I'll get another.
My only concern is the Filing of the DVD information. I filled the unit with my 300+ collection and proceeded to hit the "LOAD"
button. The unit spent a couple of hours loading and unloading each disc to "READ" the Disc info. (This can be done with the power in standby while you sleep). That amount of time is very reasonable considering I just piled over 300 DVD's into it all at one time. When all was done The unit only read the disc file information from about 1/4 to 1/3 of all the Discs. The process for manual labeling is very simple but time consuming. And I would HIGHLY !!!! recommend using a keyboard. Doing so saved alot of time. When I first loaded the discs I did not know exactly how many I had so I placed them into groups in about every 50 disc slots to "balance" the weight around the turntable. I had them in alpha order in their albums but messed that up when I loaded them around the turntable in my unecessary balancing act.Then when it was time to manualy enter the disc file info for the Discs that did not have the file info imbedded from the manufacturer, I had to manually view many of the discs to see what they were.(we're talking HOURS now) KEEP A LIST And write what number slot you put them in. It will save alot of time. Especially, if a long power outage erases the explorer info you just spent hours typing in. Once you have typed in the disc onfo into the explorer temporarily run the video output through the VCR and scroll through the folder menu as you record it. You cannot normally run the lines through the vcr as the anti copy softwre on the DVD will think you are trying to pirate it, but since you are only copying the folder menu screen it should work. When you power up the unit, The last disc viewed WILL auto start. This has shown to be very annoying to many but if you hit the "Folder" button the disc will stop and the Folder menu appears. The remote is a little hard to use. Having to slide the switch back and forth between the explorer and the DVD mode because some of the tiny buttons are multifunction is annoying. Having to start from Disc Explorer even if you know the number of the disc you want to view is just plain sad.
Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase and as I wrote earlier,When this one fills up (which won't be long) I'll get another.I do like the option of showing the disc info in the explorer menu in alpha order by using the "sort" button but it took me a few tries to figure it out.


P.S. Measure your space and make room!! It's bigger than it looks in the picture,and extra deep. the actual player part sticks out the back of the changer about 2 inches extra. I had to cut out the back of my shelf

I bought this product 15 months ago. I think it important to know that this is not an "I've had it for three days, and I love it" review. During the first year, I had very little trouble and would have rated this product much higher, but over the past few months I have seen a marked deterioration in performance. I have over three hundred discs loaded--all DVD, no CDs--and I am experiencing an inability by the player to read discs that it was able to read literally one week, and this morning, one day ago. The player is moving through disc after disc unable to read any of them.

I bought this player because I keep my discs in absolutely pristine condition. I did not want to damage them by constantly taking them out of cases or sleeves and putting them back. I do not put dirty borrowed DVDs in player, and I do not open the player door if I can avoid it. 15 months is too short a period of time for a product that costs this much money to work properly. The other DVD players I own have worked for years (and they are able to read the discs that this player cannot). I can see the day coming, and it is not far off, when this is nothing more than a 400 disc carousel, and I will have to play everything on a single disc DVD player.

Based on some of the other negative comments, I have to conclude that SONY had a great idea but failed to create the best possible player for their carousel. I did not spend all the time I did cleaning and loading my discs so I could then unload them and send the unit out to be fixed. I thought I would get at least five good years from it.

Be warned,and ask yourself: Are the positive reviews for this product from people who have owned the product for several months or a few weeks only? Pay attention to some of the negatives other people write about (which I agree with, though there is no point in restating them here.) At this point, I do not think it was worth the money, nor do I have any intention of replacing this unit with another until I have someone's assurance that it will last.

First I want to thank Amazon for the fast shipping. Also the amazing price for this product compared to some national electronic stores makes the purchase from Amazon unbeatable. My only gripe with delivery was that the external amazon box was undamaged but when I looked at the Sony box inside, it had a large gash that ultimately led to a small dent on the DVD player case. This shows that the Amazon warehouse people are not being as careful as they should when packing products before they ship. As for the player itself, it is large...very large. Be sure you have the space in your rack to place it. It goes very deep and the power supply extends even further. A tape measure is essential before you make the purchase. Once hooked up, the player was a breeze to setup. Simple setup instructions in the manual, covering every possible configuration for video and audio was clearly shown and the menu configuration for the player was easy to follow. The time consuming effort is loading the DVD's into the changer for the first time and cataloging them. I loaded 196 DVD's and it took the player about 90 minutes to scan them and the rest of the time was spent adding additional information about the DVD itself (Overall about 4 hours). The player only picked up about 20% of the DVD title information automatically. Even then you had to add artist information and genre yourself. Make sure you have the DVD cases sorted out in the exact same order as you load the DVD's or you will have to play each one one at a time to see what is in the slot. To add information with the remote will probably make you want to return this item after you have make the 50th mistake on the 4th DVD. A PS2 keyboard can be attached and is the only way to quickly add the right information. Once everything was loaded, the disc explorer was intuitive and easy to use. I now enjoy complete access to my DVD collection and the pile of DVD cases that used to sit next to my TV have a new home in the attic. Lastly, the video quality using component video and audio using optical is outstanding on my Sony 50" DLP TV and Bose Acoustimas 1200 system. I don't think I will ever see a movie theater again. 4 out of 5.

I just wanted to go on record that my unit functions properly or I thought it did until today. It has never auto-started the last DVD played until this morning. I turned on the unit and was mystified that it started playing a movie. I stoped the disc, pressed the folder button and was surprised, no make that horrified, to see nothing but question marks on all entires. All 371 dvd titles had disappeared. No power outage, no accidental unplugging. Normal shutdown. I have had the player since 12/25/05 and everything has been great until today. I won't be calling Sony as previous reviews have indicated that that process is even more frustrating than the problems with the DVD changer.

I am going to miss having the titles in memory. I really liked being able to sort by Title, actor, genre.....blah blah... Fortunately I do have an Access database with all titles and even the slot number on the changer.

I do believe tht I will start a letter writing campaign to Sony. It has worked before for me.